I bought this as a backup HT, cheap enough as under £30, didn't buy online. Also bought a programming cable. Tried to set it up and it has been frustrating.

The Baofeng website has been unhelpful, and I have followed links to third party sites, watched a couple of youtube videos, which unfortunately start beyond where I am having the issue.

By powering off the radio, then press and hold the 3 key, power the radio on and it should show BFB229 thru BFB296, that is the firmware revision number and you need go no further. However, the radio was displaying HDBF230, so I followed the instructions to down the latest CHIRP software, connected the radio to my pc via the cable and it says there is an error.

I've tried inputting a repeater manually but it doesn't seem to be working?

I can program repeaters manually to a point, just trying to save them to a memory isn't happening. The thing is I wanted it to display the repeater callsigns and you can't do that without the programming lead.

OK so have found the way to display the callsign of the repeater, only problem is now it doesn't seem to transmit, showing both plus and minus on the screen, I thought it maybe because TSQL has been selected so I did a rest and changed it to tone, it worked once on 70 cm and then I checked 2m and nothing, once again both + - are being displayed at same time?

Went to the vendor on Monday and they agreed there was something wrong with the tx side, so allegedly gave me an exchange unit, I then inputted repeater frequencies using repeaterbook, fairly simple one you are registered, this is actually long winded as for the UK you have to search by town only and one band at a time, not all the information required is transferred across, so a lot of manual keyboard inputting! Top Tip save the file, after every entry. I didn't use all the memories. When I came to use one of the local 70 cm repeaters, nothing! I thought "Oh no here we go again!" I found that the CTCSS tone was wrong, so this meant doing a fresh install, however, make sure you save the file when you change anything, merely changing something then uploading to the radio does not make any changes, so make a change, save the file! then upload.

The only thing I am disappointed in is I went out to a local hill yesterday and took the radio and my 2m Alinco with me, I found some activity on 2m simplex, in fact, one station seemed really close. I switched the UV-6R to frequency mode and inputted the freq and nothing! Whilst the Alinco was clearly picking up both stations, the UV-6R was deaf as a door post! Maybe I need to enter some simplex channels in the memories for it to work?

To be honest, the actual site is where GB3DY is based so you have about six masts there so lots of RF, didn't bother my Alinco, but as I said wiped the baofeng out on simplex, however, it was getting out a good distance, some 35 miles with good audio. I need to try it out on another hill, which will probably be next week. Most typically, I can't use the baofeng at the moment, stupid cat knocked the charger off my desk, which broke the Veroboard inside so I am waiting for ab replacement to turn up! The biggest problem I can see with these radios is the difficulty in getting replacement batteries, as there is blanket ban sending Li-ion batteries by air mail, particularly from China, I know of someone who ordered a replacement Yaesu battery from overseas and it was seized, so the person lost his order and his money!